malamute attacked by big cat

[AttilaVikingsDemon]

Glad he's ok and survived, its sad he may not be able to wroo-wrooo again, but the main focus is that he lived and is otherwise healthy. On the other point, I've read about the mysterious cats looming about over there, which is extremely newsworthy as predators(large) have been wiped out over there. They are the product of illegal ownerships gone bad, then released. We have them over here, although you never much see them, but their populations are now on the rise in the US as they are making a comeback; http://www.naturealmanac.com/archive/cougar/cougar.html and ; National Geographic News

March 7, 2003: One of the cougar's former haunts was the state of Iowa. The last historical record in the state occurred in 1867. But in the late 1990s, wildlife officials started to get reports of these large cats on the prowl.

Initially officials didn't believe the sightings. "We thought these guys were spending too much time at the bars," said Ron Andrews, furbearer resource specialist with Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

But the reports kept trickling in. In 2001, two weeks after the state had announced that a few wild cougars might be present, a run-in between car and cougar provided wildlife officials with the first tangible evidence of the cat's existence. Scientists examined the teeth and claws of the animal, and determined the cat had been living in the wild. Since then, interestâ€â€and reportsâ€â€of cougars in Iowa have grown. "We're still pondering about what's happening out there," said Andrews. "There could be a few free-ranging wild mountain lions in the state." But with thousands of cougars in private hands across the country, it's also possible the mountain lions spotted in the wild could be escaped captives, he said.

"Should mountain lions actually be occurring naturally, we think it's exciting to see these animals come back," Andrews said.

One kink in the cougar story has been how to put North American cats into a family tree. In the early 1950s, the cougar was broken into 15 different subspecies. Currently, two of these subspecies, the eastern cougar (Puma concolor cougar) and the Florida Panther (Puma concolor coryi), are listed as endangered by the federal Endangered Species Act.

In 1999, a study by Stephen O'Brien and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute suggested the North American cats may be closer relatives than previously thought.

Many cougar biologists now think that the cats in North America species are so closely related they should be considered a single subspecies. For now, the splits within the cougar species stand, and it's unclear how changing species designations would affect cougar protection.

One thing that is clear is the cougar's comeback. In the West, mountain lion populations have started to boom, with states like Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado declaring the cats completely recovered. The slow reappearance of the animals in the East could be the movements of these large ranging cats.

Increased protection of wild lands and reduced human hunting pressure may have helped the cougars and other predators by protecting the animals and the prey they eat. "Nationwide, there's obviously a wildlife population expansion that's occurring," said Andrews. In the prairie and Midwest, predators like black bears, wolves, and bobcats are beginning to return to spots where they haven't been seen in years.

While most news about the environment may be of doom and gloom, Dowling said, "I think the cougar is a real wildlife success story."